About 9 months ago, my wife and I started thinking about moving from our modern stick-built home with a new propane-fired hot-air furnace (and vent-less gas logs in the fireplace) to an old farmhouse. The farmhouse was built in 1866 with brick walls and no insulation. The current heating system is an oil-fired hot water boiler with baseboard radiators. We replaced the windows and R27 attic insulation is coming in the next few weeks. And, I knew immediately that I wanted to supplement or replace that oil heat with an indoor wood stove. I grew up with a wood stove although my contribution was typically limited to filling the wood box.
So...being somewhat aware of my ignorance...I found hearth.com and started reading. It took about 5 min to discover my ignorance was vast! Most of what I had learned, or thought I knew, was wrong (cat stoves are difficult to control) or only partially true (a year is plenty of time to season wood). So I kept lurking and learning throughout the summer...
My wife wasn't very supportive of the idea. She was very concerned about being heated out of the house. We've been to various friends' homes with wood stoves. For whatever reason, most of them run their stoves so hot that it's hard to sit in the same room and visit without falling asleep or even breaking out in a sweat! So the catalytic stoves were attractive to me due to the more even burn. The soapstone looks and slow even heat seemed like a good fit as well. But the Fireview is hard to find used.
I found a used Woodstock Fireview 205 on Craigslist. On closer inspection, it had been somewhat abused by the prior owners who evidently choked it to death. There were creosote stains on the outside of the stones and the cat was > 50% clogged shut! I replaced the cat with the new stainless model, redid some of the gaskets, and repainted the iron from gray to black.
After building a brick hearth and installing a double-wall chimney (also found used on Craigslist), I installed the stove this week. We're still getting the hang of running it using mostly poplar and a little mixed harder woods like oak and locust.
Since I know you like pictures, here's a collage spanning the several months it took to bring this all together. And...thanks for your help!
So...being somewhat aware of my ignorance...I found hearth.com and started reading. It took about 5 min to discover my ignorance was vast! Most of what I had learned, or thought I knew, was wrong (cat stoves are difficult to control) or only partially true (a year is plenty of time to season wood). So I kept lurking and learning throughout the summer...
My wife wasn't very supportive of the idea. She was very concerned about being heated out of the house. We've been to various friends' homes with wood stoves. For whatever reason, most of them run their stoves so hot that it's hard to sit in the same room and visit without falling asleep or even breaking out in a sweat! So the catalytic stoves were attractive to me due to the more even burn. The soapstone looks and slow even heat seemed like a good fit as well. But the Fireview is hard to find used.
I found a used Woodstock Fireview 205 on Craigslist. On closer inspection, it had been somewhat abused by the prior owners who evidently choked it to death. There were creosote stains on the outside of the stones and the cat was > 50% clogged shut! I replaced the cat with the new stainless model, redid some of the gaskets, and repainted the iron from gray to black.
After building a brick hearth and installing a double-wall chimney (also found used on Craigslist), I installed the stove this week. We're still getting the hang of running it using mostly poplar and a little mixed harder woods like oak and locust.
Since I know you like pictures, here's a collage spanning the several months it took to bring this all together. And...thanks for your help!
Please do let us know how it works out.
